André Chervin’s highly intricate decorative objects are on public display for the first time. His daughter Carole talks us through the process of their creation.
Over more than 50 years, André Chervin — cofounder of well-respected high-jewelry workshop Carvin French — created miniature masterpieces with his artisans. Craftspeople helped bring his colorful and whimsical visions to life as objets d’art.
In the latest episode of the Jewelry Connoisseur podcast, Carvin French vice president Carole Chervin — the jeweler’s daughter — explains the technical challenges the items posed for the workshop, and how each piece is a testament to her father’s rich creativity.
His one-of-a-kind lamps, clocks, figurines, boxes, personal accessories, and table decorations are currently on display at the New-York Historical Society as part of the exhibition “Enchanting Imagination: The Objets d’Art of André Chervin and Carvin French Jewelers.” Fashioned in gold and silver, the items contain rubies, diamonds and sapphires, as well as masterfully carved semiprecious stones like jadeite jade, lapis lazuli, amethyst, and rock crystal quartz.
The exhibition features approximately 50 objets that the artist made from 1957 to 2013. Some of them took five, 10, or even 20 years to complete, since he worked on them sporadically as time permitted.
Chervin, who was born in France in 1927 and moved to New York after World War II, didn’t intend to sell these decorative objects. They were an outlet for more creative independence than the commissions the workshop received from leading retailers such as Tiffany & Co., Verdura, and Bulgari. In that sense, notes Carole Chervin, they were his “objects of freedom.”
To listen to the Jewelry Connoisseur Podcast, click below.
This episode — along with the two previous seasons — is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.
The Jewelry Connoisseur Podcast is hosted by Rapaport Editor in Chief Sonia Esther Soltani, and produced and edited by Vanina Pikholc.
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